A prototype computer program aimed at keeping Front Range roads clear of snow was pushed Wednesday into “overwhelm” mode.

“That means they just can’t put out enough trucks or chemicals fast enough,” said Bill Mahoney, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Supported by the Federal Highway Administration, Mahoney and his colleagues built the Maintenance Decision Support System, or MDSS, to help make efficient snow and ice removal decisions.

The idea is that by using multiple weather forecasts and minute-by-minute road temperatures collected by trucks and pavement thermometers, a computer can tell plow drivers where to go, and how much and which types of de-icers to use.

In Iowa, where MDSS has been tested for two years, the program has saved the highway department $3 million to $5 million on winter road maintenance, Mahoney said.

In Colorado, the city of Denver, the state Department of Transportation and a few other agencies began testing MDSS this season.

But with snow falling at nearly 3 inches an hour as it did on the Front Range on Wednesday, there was not much advice the computer could offer.

“With this storm, well, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know you just gotta keep your plows out,” said Pat Kennedy, a senior engineer with Denver’s street maintenance department.

Denver did use its partially installed MDSS system to get ready for the storm, Kennedy said, and the program’s weather forecasts were “right on the nose.”

That helped Denver officials to decide to apply chemical de-icer on city streets before snow started to fall, to decide when plow operators should report and to predict when the storm might abate.

But the computer system – and real people – realized quickly that chemical de-icers wouldn’t be able to keep up with the snow.

In northern Colorado, CDOT has used the test MDSS system successfully for a year, said Phillip Anderle, a deputy transportation maintenance supervisor.

“The weather forecasting tool has been very, very close in predicting the start and stop times of precipitation,” Anderle said. “And we’re being more efficient, putting out the right product at the right time in the right amounts.”

In his district, 79 snowplows that cover parts of U.S. 36, Colorado 119, U.S. 287 and Interstate 25 north of Denver are equipped with geographic positioning systems, temperature sensors and touch-screen computers.

“I will say the forecasts that we got (Tuesday) allowed us to better prepare,” he said. “We chained up some of our eastern equipment where we were going to have blowing snow.”

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